Who is most at risk?The new study, part of an ongoing OECD project, examined maps and databases of population and world assets, flood-prone regions, storm frequency data, and cost of damage models for... Show More + 136 large coastal cities. For the first time, it took into account existing coastal defenses and their level of protection.In terms of the overall cost of damage, the cities at the greatest risk are: 1) Guangzhou, 2) Miami, 3) New York, 4) New Orleans, 5) Mumbai, 6) Nagoya, 7) Tampa, 8) Boston, 9) Shenzen, and 10) Osaka. The top four cities alone account for 43% of the forecast total global losses.However, developing-country cities move up the list when flood costs are measured as a percentage of city gross domestic product (GDP). Many of them are growing rapidly, have large populations, are poor, and are exposed to tropical storms and sinking land. The study lists the 10 most vulnerable cities when measured as percentage of GDP as: 1) Guangzhou; 2) New Orleans; 3) Guayaquil, Ec Show Less -

The challenges cities faceOver the two days, the conference topics ranged from sustainable urban planning to making informal transport work for the majority, to creating safe commuting choices. Beijing,... Show More + Mexico City, New York City, Quito, and Rio de Janeiro were among the cities sharing their experiences. Improving road safety in cities, and making informal transport work for the majority, were hotly debated topics.In a blog post leading up to the conference, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development Rachel Kyte suggested, “Take a drive in Lagos and you’ll see the challenges cities face – and what they can do about them.”Lagos, with some 11.2 million people, has locked-in traffic patterns and congested roads that can get thick with pollution. In 2002, the city decided to do something about it. With support from the World Bank, it began work on a bus rapid transport system, the first in sub-Saharan Africa. BRT commuters in Lagos today have reduced their transit time by 40 per Show Less -

Rapid urbanization and climate change are reshaping and exacerbating disaster risk. Together, they have added urgency to the task of building resilience in communities and countries around the world.Climate... Show More + extremes that we could hardly imagine and cope with every 20 years are going to happen every two years in this century. This is the message of a sobering report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the dramatic climate extremes that are expected to increase around the world.Meeting on the margins of the World Bank/IMF spring meetings on April 20 to discuss the implications of the report for their work on building resilience, donors, developing countries and international organizations reaffirmed their commitment to making disaster resilience a priority in development planning. The group of leading officials also agreed that integrating disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into the development agenda is critical to building resilience in communiti Show Less -

According to the Water Hackathon report, hackathons produce more meaningful results if they are designed as a process, rather than as a one-off event.“Seeing the Hackathon as a process places equal... Show More + emphasis on the collection of water challenges from those best equipped to define them, the execution of a fun and open Hackathon hosted by tech community partners best equipped to organize them, and follow-up activities that offer opportunities for further collaboration,” said Julia Bucknall, Sector Manager at the World Bank Water Anchor.Other sectors considering Hackathons stand to benefit from the lessons from the Water Hackathon in the new report.For example, the iterative process of defining pressing problems was critical to a successful event, and also drew innovation from within the water community. This strengthened that community’s engagement and its ties to one another and to the Hackathon community. This was also a point made by Mike Mathieu, founder and investor in many civi Show Less -

December 9, 2011 - More than a dozen firms vied for contracts on a World Bank-financed transportation project. But that bidding competition largely turned out to be a sham. A Bank investigation revealed... Show More + evidence the contracts were steered to particular vendors in exchange for bribes, kickbacks and payments to designated losing bidders. Ultimately the case was escalated to an independent appeals body – the World Bank Group Sanctions Board. The result: seven firms and one individual were barred from World Bank contracts, two permanently – the strongest possible action.While a press release announced the debarments, virtually nothing was published then about the evidence or deliberations in the case – one of the most egregious that have come before the Sanctions Board – or in similar cases involving errant contractors. As the World Bank marks Anti-corruption Day on December 9, that’s about to change.Under new procedures promoting greater transparency and accountability, the Sanctions Boar Show Less -

Adds World Bank Climate Change Envoy Andrew Steer: "This Climate Change Knowledge Portal enables ministers, development institutions, and non-governmental organizations in developing countries to... Show More + see within minutes what’s going to happen 30 or 40 years from now, based on the best scientific modeling that exists in the world. It’s a great tool for opening up discussion on the issues."Opening Climate Data ‘Increasingly Critical’In the past, a wealth of raw data on climate has been under-used, often ending up as static PDFs or on specialists’ hard drives. The new Climate Portal aims to make it easier to access and use climate information from various sources, including the Bank’s open data catalogue."Opening climate data will encourage experts and innovators, wherever they may be, to come up with new tools for analyzing and managing the effects of climate change,” says Shaida Badiee, director of the Bank’s Development Data Group. “The combination of open data and innovative Show Less -

"Cities are at the frontline of the struggle to adapt to climate change and reduce disaster risk. When the world’s largest cities pledge to work together on energy efficiency, clean energy, and adaptation... Show More + and mitigation strategies – this can be a powerful force for change."Speaking at the global C40 summit of mayors in Sao Paulo, Brazil, World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick highlighted findings of a new World Bank study entitled Climate Change, Disaster Risk and the Urban Poor. The study found that one billion poor people living in slums are at especially high risk from the impacts of climate change and natural hazards, because they live on the most vulnerable lands within cities.“Many cities are already building climate change risks into urban planning and city management,” Zoellick said. “But this is a mammoth task that's going to take local, national and international collaboration as well as strong financial support for local governments around the world.”Today, Show Less -

April 24, 2011—Over the past decade, 11 African countries have reduced confirmed malaria cases or malaria admissions and deaths by more than 50%. In all of them—Algeria, Botswana, Cape Verde, Eritrea,... Show More + Madagascar, Namibia, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zambia—these decreases are linked with intense malaria control interventions.Since 2005, the World Bank has committed $762.8 million to the fight against malaria in Africa, more than a ten-fold increase since 2000-2005. It has financed 73.8 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets and 25.3 million doses of malaria medication over the past five years.“Sustained anti-malaria efforts are needed in Africa, which bears about 90 percent of the world’s malaria burden,” said Maryse Pierre-Louis, program leader of the World Bank’s Disease Control Program in Africa. “Recent gains, though significant, are fragile, and the danger of resurgence remains very real.”In India, following policy reforms, malaria control activi Show Less -

World Water Day In 1993, the United Nations designated March 22 World Water Day to help focus attention on delivering better service to the billions of people who still don’t have access to a toilet... Show More + or safe drinking water.Others marked Water Day in remarkable ways. Dutch cyclists Joost Notenboom and Michiel Roodenburg are riding their bikes from Alaska, U.S. to Ushuaia, Argentina to raise awareness of the need for action on the global water crisis.The two cyclists are halfway through their 18-month journey, and their goal of raising awareness of the water and sanitation crises is bearing fruit. They stopped in Nicaragua this month to visit World Bank-financed projects. In Managua, a crowd turned out to greet them as they learned from residents how the project will bring clean water and sanitation services to the city’s low-income barrios.Across the Pacific, the African Ministers' Council on Water (AMCOW) joined UN-HABITAT and UN-Water in co-organizing the official World Water Day Show Less -

Oct.12, 2010 -- New business creation dropped sharply in richer countries amid the global financial crisis, but didn’t change much in many lower-income countries, according to a new World Bank survey.The... Show More + trend in 2008-2009 was driven by the global financial crisis, which began in developed countries and hit them harder, according to the 2010 World Bank Group Entrepreneurship Snapshots. In particular, countries which were hit harder by the crisis suffered more severe declines in formal registration. In New Zealand, for example, 47,897 new firms were registered in 2009, a 35 percent drop from 74,247 in 2007. Bulgaria and Lithuania also saw drastic declines.By contrast, registrations in many low-income countries, which were not as affected by the crisis, held up. That’s mainly because those countries tend to have lower rate of new business creation to begin with, and economic shocks there tend to bring smaller changes. It helped that some countries recently introduced new measures to mode Show Less -